To me no one shall speak more of politic alliances to be sanctioned with this poor hand.

I could not--I would not--have been his bride living--our degrees were too distant.

But death unites the high and the low--I am henceforward the spouse of the grave." The King was about to answer with much anger, when a Carmelite monk entered the apartment hastily, his head and person muffled in the long mantle and hood of striped cloth of the coarsest texture which distinguished his order, and, flinging himself on his knees before the King, conjured him, by every holy word and sign, to stop the execution.
"Now, by both sword and sceptre," said Richard, "the world is leagued to drive me mad!--fools, women, and monks cross me at every step.

How comes he to live still ?" "My gracious liege," said the monk, "I entreated of the Lord of Gilsland to stay the execution until I had thrown myself at your royal--" "And he was wilful enough to grant thy request," said the King; "but it is of a piece with his wonted obstinacy.

And what is it thou hast to say?
Speak, in the fiend's name!" "My lord, there is a weighty secret, but it rests under the seal of confession.